Are you fascinated by social media’s impact, an influencer’s career, content creation, or online ads? You’re not alone. Many students and recent grads are opting for a career in digital marketing. This field isn’t just a trend anymore; that was back in the 2010s. With the high demand and impact of the creator economy, a career in digital marketing is proving to be one of the most lucrative options.
Think about it: the creator economy, where influencers and content creators rule, is expected to jump from $250 billion to over $400 billion in the next 5 years. That’s a huge opportunity for those thinking about pursuing a career in digital marketing.
But that’s not all. Digital marketing offers various roles for different interests. Whether you love social media, data analysis, creating content, or exploring new tech, there’s a dedicated place for you here. Before talking about various job roles, let’s look at some underlings of digital marketing.
Core Disciplines of a Career in Digital Marketing
Before diving in, it’s important to note that digital marketing comprises numerous facets. It is an umbrella term for all types of online marketing. Here are the various branches:
1. Search Engine Optimization (SEO):
This used to be the most popular aspect of digital marketing (more about it later). Search Engine Optimization involves optimizing websites to rank higher on search engine results pages (SERPs). SEO professionals work on improving website content, keywords, and structure to enhance visibility and organic traffic.
For example – The blogs we write here at FuelEd are SEO optimized, and a lot goes into the background other than just writing the articles. If done right, SEO will help us become one of the highest-ranking ‘career’ blogs on Google. Hopeful!
Related Read: How to start Digital Marketing as a side hustle without Quitting your Job
2. Search Engine Marketing (SEM) and Pay-Per-Click (PPC):
Unlike SEO, SEM and PPC are the engines behind paid online advertising. Professionals in this domain strategize, create, and manage paid campaigns on search engines. They aim to reach specific audiences by bidding on keywords and optimizing ad performance for maximum return on investment (ROI).
For example – I’m sure you Google a lot. Have you ever noticed a search appearing on top with a tag of ‘Ad’ or ‘Sponsored’? Yes, that’s it!
3. Social Media Marketing (SMM):
Outranking SEO in the last few years, Social Media Marketing has become the most sought-after career in digital marketing. SMM revolves around using the power of social media platforms to engage audiences.
Social media marketers create compelling content, run targeted ads, and engage in community management across platforms like Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and Twitter. It’s about building brand presence, driving engagement, and fostering relationships.
You don’t need an example for this one, do you?
4. Content Marketing:
This is often synchronized as a subset of SMM, but that’s not entirely true. Content marketing is the art of storytelling. It involves creating valuable and relevant content to attract and retain a clearly defined audience.
Content marketers produce blogs, videos, infographics, and more, aiming to educate, entertain, or inspire their audience while aligning with the brand’s objectives.
This involves creating content for blogs and social media platforms, writing video scripts, and more.
5. Email Marketing:
Email marketing is no less than SMM in terms of scope and pay. With the rise of one-person creator businesses, the popularity of email marketing has shot up. And it’s a no-brainer that email remains the cornerstone of digital communication.
Email Marketers write personalized and targeted emails to nurture leads, build customer relationships, and drive conversions. It often involves segmenting audiences, designing compelling content, and analyzing performance metrics for optimization.
Building an email list is making creators tens of thousands of dollars every month. But more on it sometime later.
Various Jobs in Digital Marketing
Digital marketing offers a diverse array of roles, each catering to specific skill sets and interests. Let’s delve into the various job profiles that constitute the digital marketing ecosystem:
SEO Specialist:
SEO specialists are responsible for optimizing websites to improve their visibility in search engine results pages (SERPs). They conduct keyword research, optimize on-page elements (titles, meta descriptions, etc.), create high-quality content, and build backlinks. Your overall goal as an SEO specialist will be to enhance organic traffic and rankings.
PPC/SEM Manager:
PPC/SEM managers oversee paid advertising campaigns on platforms like Google Ads. They develop strategies, choose appropriate keywords, create compelling ad copies, manage budgets, and monitor campaign performance to achieve maximum ROI.
Now, you could also drive out the role of copywriter from this and create a separate branch of various careers in digital marketing.
Also Read: 16 job roles in Digital Marketing
Social Media Manager:
Social Media Managers, as we have already discussed, handle a brand’s presence across social platforms. They create and curate content, engage with the audience, manage social media calendars, run paid campaigns, and analyze metrics to optimize strategies for increased brand awareness and engagement.
This is one of the highest-paid roles in the area of digital marketing. Freelance social media managers in India earn over $1000-$2000/month easily.
Content Marketer:
Content marketers focus on creating valuable, relevant, and engaging content for various platforms, such as blogs, articles, videos, infographics, and more. They conduct research, identify audience needs, maintain content calendars, and measure content performance to drive traffic and conversions.
The popularity and demand of content marketers have increased exponentially in the last year. Just to give an example – I charge my clients more than $1500/month for content marketing services.
Email Marketing Specialist:
Email marketing specialists develop and execute email campaigns. They segment audiences, design personalized content, A/B test subject lines, and analyze open rates and click-through rates to improve campaign effectiveness and nurture leads.
All your favorite X and LinkedIn creators have newsletters, but they don’t have enough time to create, grow, and monetize a profitable email list. What do they do? They hire email marketing specialists at crazy monthly retainers.
Digital Analyst:
Digital analysts use data analytics tools to interpret marketing data. They analyze consumer behavior, campaign performance metrics, website traffic, and conversion rates. Their insights guide marketing strategies and optimizations for better outcomes.
A very underrated yet in-demand job role in the digital marketing space!
Influencer Marketer:
Everyone wants to become an influencer. Companies and brands know how connected and inspired the audience feels with certain influencers. But they don’t have enough knowledge or time to reach out to influencers and do paid collaborations.
This is where influencer marketers become the bridge. Influencer marketers collaborate with influencers to create campaigns that resonate with the brand’s target audience. They research and identify suitable influencers, negotiate contracts, manage partnerships, and track campaign performance through influencer collaborations.
Want to know how much you can earn as an influencer and influencer marketer? Click here.
UX/UI Specialist:
This one was unexpected, right? But see, digital marketing is all about attracting and retaining the audience. Every other trick comes only after the user interface and experience.
UX/UI specialists focus on optimizing user experience and interface design. They conduct user research, create wireframes and prototypes, perform usability testing, and collaborate with designers and developers to ensure a seamless user journey.
Digital Marketer:
Now, this is something that combines two or more of the above-mentioned job types. Note that digital marketing interns, digital marketers, and digital marketing managers have more or less the same work but with different loads.
So, digital marketers oversee overall marketing strategies. They develop marketing plans, coordinate teams, set objectives, analyze campaign performance, and adapt strategies to meet organizational goals.
This job can also involve creating and strategizing content.
E-commerce Marketing Specialist:
This is a highly specialized career option in the digital marketing space. E-commerce marketers work strictly in the e-commerce niche with one strong objective: To generate more sales.
E-commerce marketers plan ways to drive traffic, conversions, and sales on online platforms. They optimize product listings, implement SEO tactics specific to e-commerce, plan promotions, write copies, and manage advertising campaigns tailored for online retail.
Conclusion
In wrapping up, digital marketing is like a big umbrella term that spans anything and everything online. There are so many branches and specific jobs in digital marketing, like the ones mentioned above. Well, that’s not all!
The world is big and so are the different branches and niche careers in digital marketing. Here is a list of some more job roles you must’ve heard about:
- Digital Marketing Coordinator
- Marketing Automation Specialist
- Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO) Specialist
- CRM Manager (Customer Relationship Management)
- Web Analytics Manager
- Mobile Marketing Specialist
- Brand Manager
- Online Reputation Manager
- Growth Hacker
- Social Media Analyst
- Video Marketing Specialist
- Community Manager
- Copywriter
- Digital Advertising Specialist
…and more. In short, the time is right, and picking one such career in the digital marketing space can truly change your life. Which one are you interested in?
